Italy in the 1920's 01

Italy in the 1920’s Part 1

The Concordat, Mussolini concluded with the Holy See in February 1929 (v. Lateran: the Lateran Pacts, XX, p. 570) marks a new stage in the unification of Italy inside that ascends toward the imperial power. In truth it signifies the unity achieved between the political and religious conscience of the Italians. And for this profound national value, it appears in the history of Italy as one of the greatest acts carried out after the Risorgimento.

But the work of unification, which is the first tasks of the fascist regime, takes place progressively in the political aspect, for the new organization of the state and social life, in intellectual formation, with the new school discipline, and in everything the structure of economic activities.

According to globalsciencellc.com, the development of the internal history of Italy is therefore characterized by this constant direction of unity, in which the different aspects of national life and the different interests of individuals are integrated in solidarity and are defined with interdependent functions.

First of all, the transformation of the state is remarkable. The need for this transformation, common to all countries, was deeply felt after the world war, which reveals itself in the historical perspective also as a gigantic revolution which creates in every nation shifts of classes and economic and social positions, of states. and spiritual addresses, of state possibilities with immediate repercussions on the populations. The transformation of the state and of national life, brought about by fascism, translates with faithful and timely adherence this revolution that has been created in Italy as in any other country in the world. The Fascist revolution changed the system of political hierarchies, the powers and relations of the state from the ground up, reviving their order and harmony. The state, as a unitary synthesis of the community,

Until November 16, 1922, in the first parliamentary meeting after the March on Rome, Mussolini announced that his government was “outside, above and against any designation of parliament”. And in this way the Italian totalitarian state is constituted which intends to represent the totality and unity of the nation. Already a law of 24 December 1925 defines the new high attributions and prerogatives of the head of the government, while a subsequent law of 31 January 1926 recognizes the executive power to issue juridical norms (Italy: Political order, XIX, p. 774; minister, XXIII, p. 394; powers, XXVIII, p. 118).

Of this new political form Mussolini gives the precise definition: “The state concretizes the political, juridical and economic organization of the nation: it is the guarantor of internal and foreign security but it is also the custodian and transmitter of the spirit of the people. It is the state that it represents the immanent conscience of the nation “. The state and for it the government, in its substantial political guidelines, thus project themselves into the future with a character of continuity which the democratic system of freedoms and the alternating history of parties could not allow. They are no longer only administrators of life freely created by citizens; but they become the constructive and directing force of the nation from which they draw the spirit. With these fundamental principles, the history of the Italian state, in the new regime, it is first and foremost the story of an executive power that takes back the right of initiative and full responsibility without depending on parliamentarism. And this is in a way a return to the true spirit of the statute.

The new political order of fascism has been defined as a dictatorship with the evidently controversial intention of bringing it back to the ancient forms of tyranny and absolutism. But it corresponds instead to the new needs of the time. In the great report of fascism of 14 September 1929 Mussolini said: “The dictatorship is in fact, that is, in the need for a single command, in the political, moral and intellectual strength of the man who exercises it for the purposes he sets himself”.

The fascist state operates directly or through the party and the organizations that depend on it. With the law of December 9, 1928, the Grand Council of Fascism becomes an essential part of the new constitutional order of the state. The Grand Council had revolutionary origins. It was the meeting of the highest hierarchs of the fascist party that began in January 1923. But the law of 1928 gives it a precise figure, structure and functions. With it the Grand Council, which associates the members of the government and the party and the most direct and highest representatives of all national activities, in fact becomes the supreme advisory body of the crown and of the government for all serious questions: from that of succession to the throne. to that of the appointment of the head of government, in case of vacancy.

In turn, the party, which develops in the form of an ever more integral political organization, adapts the spirit and activity of the nation to the tasks of the regime and maintains daily contact, down to the last capillary ramifications, between it and the state.

The transformation of the state naturally leads to the transformation of laws in its wake. Hence the reform of all codes. It is already deliberated two months after the March on Rome with the law of 20 December 1922. The studies of competent technical commissions, carried out with the task of inspiring the new laws to the national concepts and to the ethical and political principles of the new regime, are concluded in rapid stages. The Criminal Code and the Code of Criminal Procedure were already published on 19 October 1930. The new penal code merges together the three Italian elements of the classic tradition of criminal law on crime and punishment, of the new positive science of criminal anthropology and of the essence of the fascist regime with its new conceptions of law, especially as regards the defense of the state and the lineage.

Italy in the 1920's 01

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